Smurf’s up

I arrived only fractionally late, at 7.35 to find Ian, Sam and Martin sitting around Sam’s kitchen table: we were already at this week’s expected attendance, with only a vague chance of a Joe later on who was stranded in Clifton. Before I’d even sat down, Sam began with a rules explanation for Heat, which is basically Flamme Rouge on four wheels. Although technically you’re in control of four wheels in Flamme Rouge, too, but you know what I mean. This game has one car instead of two bikes.

It uses the same card-drafting mechanism as FR to get you around a track, along with a familiar slipstreaming option. But there are more random elements, especially in the form of “stress” cards which allow you to reveal cards in your deck until you draw a movement card. This could see you going too fast around a corner or stall on a wide open straight.

We played the basic game on the Italia circuit. It was pretty tight at the start until I struggled round a corner and got left behind on lap one. Ian was in the lead in lap two but with a severely overheated engine that limited his options. 

I clawed my way back into third, but the last lap was all about Sam and Martin. We used the kind of language that I’m sure all Formula 1 drivers would recognise (“Oh shit, I’m going really fast,” and “Corners are annoying”). Both Sam and Martin went past the finish line on the same turn, so it was a matter of who passed the furthest and after playing a stress card Martin revealed a 3, which pushed him past Sam for the win.

Martin

Sam

Andrew

Ian

Next we played Cat In A Box, the quantum trick-taking game. In this, all the cards in your hand (values 1-8 in a four player game) have no colour until your nominate a colour when you play it.  Other than that, it’s a pretty standard trick-taker where you predict the number of tricks you’re going to win. Oh, until a little bit of area control comes into play during the scoring phase. This rule was so unexpected that we actually laughed. We’re so invested in board game culture that we found the rules of a game amusing. I think we crossed a line there.

As for the game, I got a bit lucky, with a healthy supply of 8s and 7s, meaning I was able to predict the maximum 3 tricks each time. Martin fared less well, though. Apart from the very first hand, he didn’t win again until round four. Ian was my closest rival, notwithstanding my mid-game score summary as 11-11 when it was actually 13-10 in my favour.

Andrew 19

Ian 14

Martin 8

Sam 6

An interesting game. No green player pieces, but two shades of blue…

Last (for me) was Block Party, the 3D Pictionary of limited means. All you have is a selection of coloured cubes to communicate on of the objects listed on your card. It’s really satisfying when you guess right or someone guesses yours. On the round with “fewest cubes” I thought my sandwich (white cube, yellow cube, white cube) was a definite winner until Martin’s minimalist Smurf (a blue cube and a neighboring white cube at a rakish angle) was correctly guessed by Ian.

Spot the difference...

It was a lot of fun. Sam’s rough pyramid of brown cubes with orange cubes underneath was definitely a volcano, I thought, but it turned out to be poo. Meanwhile, my egg was mistaken for a snowman. The only downside was the number of times a card had to be replaced because it had recently been played and written up on the blog. We played twice.

An aubergine

Sam & Martin 6

Ian and Andrew 5

And then, 

Martin 7

Ian 7

Sam 5

Andrew 4

I set off home, although I was sorely tempted for a quick So Clover. Instead the three of them played it twice, scoring 18 out of 18 and then 16.

Thanks all for the evening. See you all soon.